William Vance

William van Cutsem

(b. 8 September 1935, Belgium)

William Vance, pseudonym of William van Cutsem, made his comic debut with some illustrations in the Dutch version of Tintin magazine. His first comic stories were generally biographies, but in 1964 he started on his first series, 'Howard Flynn', which was about a navy officer. Vance's talent really revealed itself when he made the western series 'Ray Ringo' and the special agent series 'Bruno Brazil', which was written by Michel Greg. He then succeeded Gérald Forton on H. Verne's 'Bob Morane' series, which was published in Femmes d'Aujourd'hui, Pilote and Tintin. While doing 'Bob Morane', Vance illustrated several other stories for Femmes d'Aujourd'hui, such as 'S.O.S. Nature', 'Mongwy', 'Rodric' and the 'Ramiro' series. Along with André-Paul Duchâteau, he produced the 'Bruce J. Hawker' series from 1976 in Tintin and again Femmes d'Aujourd'hui.

Highlight of his career became 'XIII', an espionage series written by Jean Van Hamme, based on Ludlum's book 'The Bourne Identity'. Starting in 1984, 'XIII' is built around a character in search of his true identity. What follows is a series of exciting intrigues, government and military cover-ups, murder attempts and action scenes. He returned to the western genre in 1991 with illustrating the 'Blueberry' spin-off 'Marshall Blueberry' (text by Jean Giraud). Primarily inspired by the work of Hans G. Kresse, William Vance is a meticulous artist with a great sense for realism and detail. In 2010 he announced his retirement due to Parkinson disease.